“No recording allowed! Stop recording now!”
It took a moment to register that the bullhorn admonishment was directed at me. I’d just parked my car and walked up to the edge of Oz Park near Lincoln Park High School in Chicago, where a couple hundred young people were gathered on a hill for the start of a march downtown to protest the killing of George Floyd.
As I often do, especially when I’m working as a journalist as I was Monday, I was snapping some shots of the scene. I lowered my phone and glanced around to be sure we were all on public property. We were. I lifted up my media badge and said, “No, I can take photos here.”
But the rebukes continued. “You can’t record without my consent!” yelled a young woman to my side. And “People here could literally get arrested if their faces are shown!” came another from up on the hill.
I didn’t lift my phone camera again until two young women ran up to within a few feet of me, to wave their signs in my face and block my view of the gathering. At that point, I sighed, lifted my phone and snapped a couple of shots of them. Then the group’s leaders called for everyone to start marching and they all headed off.
It was a peculiar encounter that left me wondering about how the latest coming-of-age generation understands the First Amendment — and whether they could see the double standard they were practicing.
The group I encountered were mostly teens, organized by the group FourtuneHouse to march in two groups — one from the North Side, one from the South Side — toward downtown. They were peaceful and passionate with their message, and it was inspiring to see so many young people taking action and lifting their voices during such a volatile time.
This is also a generation raised on social media and constant video surveillance — a generation that knows intuitively the awesome power that shared images and video carry. So I get their resistance to having their every move documented and pushed out to the world.
That’s the messy part about freedom of speech, though. When we’re out in the public arena exercising our right to free expression, we don’t get to tell others they can’t exercise that same right.
Legally, I was allowed to stand on that public sidewalk taking as many photos or videos as I wanted of the group gathered in a public park. The group’s members certainly could ask me to stop and implore me to understand the reasons for their request, but I didn’t have to comply.
What concerned me more, though, was that these outspoken, determined teens seemed to miss the irony of their demand.
They were gathered to protest because a black man in Minneapolis had died under the crushing pressure of the knee of a white police officer — a horrific killing that has sparked outrage around the world.
But how did the world know what happened to George Floyd? We know because a 17-year-old concerned citizen standing nearby hit record on her cellphone camera and captured the torturous eight minutes leading up to Floyd’s unnecessary death.
Do we want our police to be allowed to say, “No recording allowed!”? Would we have wanted the father and son who chased down and killed Ahmaud Arbery to have been able to command, “No recording allowed!”? Would we prefer that the dashcam video of Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer remain hidden?
No, of course not.
Without video, would we know what really happened to Walter Scott, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Terence Crutcher and so many more?
The power of video — to document racism, police brutality and other atrocities — has brought remarkable change over the past decade in our society’s understanding of what too many people of color endure. It has led to convictions in cases that, before the video era, would’ve been washed away.
The young people out protesting peacefully this week are showing tremendous courage. By practicing their constitutional right to assemble and protest, they are risking physical harm, arrest and, in some cases, repercussions from parents, teachers and employers.
But they must also learn the law if they plan to publicly demonstrate. And they must recognize that with protest comes responsibility — and consequences. If they believe strongly enough in their message, it will be worth it.
If they push back against the cameras, though, they risk undermining not only their own cause but the First Amendment rights that allow us to see all the images that are bringing about change.
It takes great courage to be named, to be in the spotlight, to step in front of that camera in the fight for justice.
Without those cameras, though, how would we know?
Lara Weber is a member of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.
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Lara Weber: Protesters who try to ban cameras miss the point of the First Amendment - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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